Switching to Admin Account

By Ekaj, 11 January, 2015

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi everyone. Subject line pretty much sums it up. In sorting out this pesky password issue on my Mac, I've discovered that I'm not the admin of my computer anymore. To be honest I'm not sure I ever was, but how would I go about doing that? I've gone into "Users and Groups," but there doesn't seem to be anything there. I did see mention of the word "admin," but there doesn't seem to be a way to switch to that even when interacting. I'm running Yosemite.

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Comments

By Unuhinuiʻi on Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - 00:24

Hi Jake,
The first user in Os X is ALWAYS an admin user; over the years of use, especially when using accessibility features, weird things can happen.
You may have accidentally two or more accounts - or home folders now.
It should be quite easy to fix once someone can see or show you how to do it;
I would recommend you to call AppleCare, or schedule and make a call from their website. Select any of the accessibility features as the product (so you are covered), then OS X as the next product, and describe the issue. The nice thing of preparing the call online is that the tech person will have your case number AND all the relevant info. That way, if itʻll turn out to be something e.g. VoiceOver-related, your issue will be resolved faster.

By Tyler on Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - 00:24

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

1. Open users and groups preferences.

2. If settings are dimmed, click the lock and enter an admin password. In Voiceover, the lock icon is spoken as, "Click the lock to make changes."

3. In the, "Users, groups, and login options," group, make sure the current user, the one you want to make an admin, is selected.

4. Stop interacting with that group and navigate to the right to the, "Allow user to administer this computer," checkbox. Select that. You may need to logout for this change to take effect.

By Ekaj on Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - 00:24

Thanks both of you for your help. This afternoon when my sighted tutor was over here, we called AppleCare again and moved some extra things to the trash, and then emptied the trash. We think we have the problem solved now finally. But the updates that were just released are taking forever to install. I'm going to leave my Mac on all night and then see what happens when I come back here in the morning. Apparently something got very screwed up along the way, and we think I might've been hacked somehow.